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You hate Holy Trinity,Fine what do you replace it with?

I was reading the dumbest mmo mechanic thread.They are fair amount people saying they hate the trinity in games but what do you replace it ? If people have notice but shooters are using the dps,healer,and tank mechanics for example TF2,resistance 2,Killzone 2 just to name few. Ask yourself why

I can tell you the reason why the healing mechanic is used so often,It is the best active support mechanic out there and other than healing there is basically cc,buffing and debuffing.So if you are trying to diverse your game from just attacking alone and you want active non combat support class what are choices?

You are making a RPG and you want combat to be more than just attacking.What are you replacing the Holy trinity with?

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Comments

  • IlvaldyrIlvaldyr Member CommonPosts: 2,142

    This topic crops up from time to time; the trinity exists purely because it's the strongest PVE foundation to build game mechanics around. It adds structure and provides a basic platform (tank and spank) for developers to branch out from.

    Obviously, it's completely devoid of logic. No dragon is going to whomp repeatedly on a heavily armoured dude whose every wound is instantly healed by another dude stood 10ft away. Especially when the second dude is wearing "armour" that offers comparable protection to a paper bag. A thin one. A wet thin one. A wet thin one of inferior quality construction.

    But without the trinity, your base fight is a zerg. All definition of class role would go straight out of the window. If you don't have "threat" then how do you determine which player the dragon decides to hit? Do you go by who does the most damage? Closest?

    But then what use would a heavily armoured warrior that does crap damage be when the dragon ignores him and chomps on yer uber-DPS rogue? Both have to be in melee range. You can't just up the warriors damage, or you screw any semblence of class balance. Who would play a rogue if warriors did comparable damage and had much better survivability?

    Do you add extra "threat" to a warriors attacks? Snares? .. you're back to "tank and spank".

    And in-combat healing. Sure, you could get rid of that and made all fights fast enough that the focus is on killing the enemy before you all die (DPS races).. but then you eliminate a complete playstyle. Lots of people enjoy playing the healer role, if you can't heal in combat then you're not supporting their playstyle.

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    Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
  • disownationdisownation Member UncommonPosts: 243
    Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


    Obviously, it's completely devoid of logic. No dragon is going to whomp repeatedly on a heavily armoured dude whose every wound is instantly healed by another dude stood 10ft away. Especially when the second dude is wearing "armour" that offers comparable protection to a paper bag. A thin one. A wet thin one. A wet thin one of inferior quality construction.
     



     

     

    Its not completely illogical as you may think. As the "Tank" you are in essence the most "Threatening" in appearence. In an RPG sense, you taunt, boast, and shout to get the dragon's attention and force it to focus on you. Now, from a third person perspective (meaning You - who is watching this from an outside stand point), yes it could seem not so logical. But you forget that you have outside knowlege of the game and its mechanics. Of course you would go for the healers first and ignore the Guy who does the "least amount of damage and can soak an amazing amount of health). The "Dragon" you are fighting does not. He is merely "acting" within the games mechanics.

     

    If you were to think of this in an RL perspective.

    Lets say you and I were to come accross a Grizzley Bear in the Wild. Now, I'm a big guy (6'2 / 280lbs / Muscles Galore). And you're a little skinny guy (but with a spear). I'm fairly certain I could taunt and shout and keep that Bear's attention on me while you sneak up behind him and stab him. If he turns to you and goes to strike you, I could again grab his attention (maybe even physically grabbing his head and pulling it back to face me) and make him "believe" I am more threatening...because I am bigger, louder, more intimidating and my stance is imposing (my arms are out stretched and I'm raoring up like he is). His focus is going to naturally be on me - because I am the most threatinging being of the two of us. His natural reaction is going to assume that I am who he should focus on for his survival...and not the little guy who has a sharp object that can sever his artery and kill him.

     

    See? So its not so illogical after all is it? Hehe.

  • pojungpojung Member Posts: 810

    I stand here with my avatar. I run 2m/s, I have 1000hp.

    You can reduce my speed (control), my [max] health (debuff).

    You can increase my speed (functionality), my [max] health (buff).

    You can reduce my health by increments (damage) or increase my [depleted] health by increments (heal).

     

    This is pretty much the table-top model and its mechanics at their most raw. The concept of tank, heals, and dps are all 'defining denominators' to one class or another.

    It's not unlike conventional military tactics. Infantry occupy the front lines (tank), support elements like intelligence or communications keep the infantry running (heals), while the artillery deals the devastating and decisive blows during an encounter (damage).

     

    How do you get away from this? Well, first off, is that necessary? It's a mechanic that is widely embraced, it's familiar, and provides functionality and flexibility for a wide array of possible encounter structures. My first thought would be: make it more involving, interesting, demanding.

    A dragon shouldn't be dumb enough to keep hitting a guy who isn't going down. Perhaps that dragon can knock said individual away and charge at the guy who is healing him. Abilities that require more than just a 'stand here, spam x'. The *current* concept of threat generation is flawed, and what most people have issues with, despite their inability to express it. The 'holy trinity' model is fine. It's its implimentation, the underlying mechanic(s), that needs a revamp.

    If you're bent on seeking a new model for play, then you would either need to develop a new core model for player interaction or redefine which of the functions you establish as the denominator.

    I could perfectly well see a design concept where:

    - everyone has high health (negating a 'tank')

    - everyone has passive health regen (negating a 'healer')

    - people choose between being a functionality'ist (word help plz), controller, a buffer, or a debuffer. Either you spend all your abilities on keeping a person/ a group of people buffed or bebuffed, inable to perform or able to.

    That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
    We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
    So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
    - MMO_Doubter

  • ZorgoZorgo Member UncommonPosts: 2,254
    Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


    This topic crops up from time to time; the trinity exists purely because it's the strongest PVE foundation to build game mechanics around. It adds structure and provides a basic platform (tank and spank) for developers to branch out from.
    Obviously, it's completely devoid of logic. No dragon is going to whomp repeatedly on a heavily armoured dude whose every wound is instantly healed by another dude stood 10ft away. Especially when the second dude is wearing "armour" that offers comparable protection to a paper bag. A thin one. A wet thin one. A wet thin one of inferior quality construction.
    Yeah for that to happen, the tank would have to be some fantastical epic hero that could magically 'taunt' the dragon into attacking him - and that healer would have some magical spell that reduced the dragon's awareness of the priest and his/her healing skills. But who would ever believe in magical abilities being in an mmo? - It seems like 'fantasy' to me.....
    (At the point we are asking 'what would make these magical fantasy creatures realistic' you've already lost the point of the game, imo)
    But without the trinity, your base fight is a zerg. All definition of class role would go straight out of the window. If you don't have "threat" then how do you determine which player the dragon decides to hit? Do you go by who does the most damage? Closest?
    But then what use would a heavily armoured warrior that does crap damage be when the dragon ignores him and chomps on yer uber-DPS rogue? Both have to be in melee range. You can't just up the warriors damage, or you screw any semblence of class balance. Who would play a rogue if warriors did comparable damage and had much better survivability?
    Do you add extra "threat" to a warriors attacks? Snares? .. you're back to "tank and spank".
    And in-combat healing. Sure, you could get rid of that and made all fights fast enough that the focus is on killing the enemy before you all die (DPS races).. but then you eliminate a complete playstyle. Lots of people enjoy playing the healer role, if you can't heal in combat then you're not supporting their playstyle.
    I agree with all the above - but it is like beating a dead horse trying to explain to people against the trinity that if a game is going to incorporate interdependent group play, the group has to be interdependent. Seems easy enough - yet people don't want to believe it.
    Sometimes I feel that the same 'anti-trinity' group is the same group which is 'anti-grouping/anti-raiding' - which would make sense. Because if you don't need a group to play the game, you don't need interdependence. I've often wondered why someone who only liked to solo would purchase a group oriented game....but I guess it's the devs fault rather than their own. 
    But again, try to explain to a solophile why their 'group centered' game should have mostly group content and they will act like you are crazy. They truly believe that a 'group centered' game should be solo friendly. Odd that those who prefer group play never show up at single player game forums demanding group content.



     

  • MMO_DoubterMMO_Doubter Member Posts: 5,056

    Replace the silly taunting mechanics of tanks with body blocking and the use of terrain. Like Neverwinter Nights did.

    When I moved from NWN to WoW, the whole tanking aspect felt wrong to me. To say nothing of the lack of collision detection. I got used to WoW's system but it never felt reasonable to me. It's very 'gamey'.

    As for healing aggro - only intelligent mobs should go after someone who is standing a distance away and not hurting them.

    "" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2

  • angus858angus858 Member UncommonPosts: 381

    All you need is DPS.  When the army sends a squad of 8 men to do a job they don't send 2 riflemen, 2 medics, 2 artillerymen, and 2 military intelligence analysts.  They send 8 riflemen.  The support roles are more important when you send 800 men in. 

    The differences in play styles could be catered to by non-combat functions.  The troubles is most mmorpgs don't give enough love to non-combat activity.  Only the original SWG did that and it worked just fine. 

  • luckturtzluckturtz Member Posts: 422
    Originally posted by pojung



    How do you get away from this? Well, first off, is that necessary? It's a mechanic that is widely embraced, it's familiar, and provides functionality and flexibility for a wide array of possible encounter structures. My first thought would be: make it more involving, interesting, demanding.


     

    It is simple.They are games already do this like CoX or Guild Wars to extent.No game you should ever hear we are looking for healer.You should be able to any quest,any mission with any group. If you have six dps or six tanks,They should be way to always to do a mission with class at hand. In CoX the other two support concepts CC and buffing are as strong as healing.You beat missions CC,tank and dps, buffing/debuffing,tank and dps or healing/dps/tank.Also tanks and dps are versatile enough that they could do other roles so that helps.The most fun i have every had playing mmo is playing a with a team of  5 blasters and 1 controller .

    The key is having healers in the game but they are a option not the only option.

  • pojungpojung Member Posts: 810
    Originally posted by luckturtz

    Originally posted by pojung



    How do you get away from this? Well, first off, is that necessary? It's a mechanic that is widely embraced, it's familiar, and provides functionality and flexibility for a wide array of possible encounter structures. My first thought would be: make it more involving, interesting, demanding.


     

    It is simple.They are games already do this like CoX or Guild Wars to extent.No game you should ever hear we are looking for healer.You should be able to any quest,any mission with any group.You have six dps or six tanks,They should be way to always to do a mission with class at hand. In CoX the other two support concepts CC and buffing are as strong as healing.You beat missions CC,tank and dps, buffing/debuffing,tank and dps or healing/dps/tank.Also tanks and dps are versatile enough that they could do other roles.The most fun i have every had playing mmo is playing a with a team of  5 blasters and 1 controller  and it work.

    The key is having healers in the game but they are a option not the only option.



     

    Then what you're looking for is *balance*. Not a new system necessarily, but a balanced one.

    BigBadX has 50 hp and does 5 dps. You encounter BigBadX with a 10man team.

    'Tanks' do 1dps and have 5hp. 'DPS' does 5dps and have 1hp. 'Healers' do 1dps, have 2hp, and do 2hps. Err, my math might be off here. It's napkin math while I get my gym bag packed. Basically, you want a system that ends up having a mob dead while everyone alive is out of ability resources and half of their max hp (to not have a simultaneous death), regardless of class/role/spec w/e.

     

    I'm familiar with 'alternate' systems in use with GW and played CoX myself. There are more models, clearly, and I identified how those models are structured, or would be structured. At the root of it all, however, it needs to be balanced in the end.

    Edit: I think in my example I have a simultaneous death senario. LOL! Regardless, the point was conveyed with words. Off to the gym!

    That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
    We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
    So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
    - MMO_Doubter

  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
    Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


    This topic crops up from time to time; the trinity exists purely because it's the strongest PVE foundation to build game mechanics around. It adds structure and provides a basic platform (tank and spank) for developers to branch out from.
    Obviously, it's completely devoid of logic. No dragon is going to whomp repeatedly on a heavily armoured dude whose every wound is instantly healed by another dude stood 10ft away. Especially when the second dude is wearing "armour" that offers comparable protection to a paper bag. A thin one. A wet thin one. A wet thin one of inferior quality construction.
    But without the trinity, your base fight is a zerg. All definition of class role would go straight out of the window. If you don't have "threat" then how do you determine which player the dragon decides to hit? Do you go by who does the most damage? Closest?
    But then what use would a heavily armoured warrior that does crap damage be when the dragon ignores him and chomps on yer uber-DPS rogue? Both have to be in melee range. You can't just up the warriors damage, or you screw any semblence of class balance. Who would play a rogue if warriors did comparable damage and had much better survivability?
    Do you add extra "threat" to a warriors attacks? Snares? .. you're back to "tank and spank".
    And in-combat healing. Sure, you could get rid of that and made all fights fast enough that the focus is on killing the enemy before you all die (DPS races).. but then you eliminate a complete playstyle. Lots of people enjoy playing the healer role, if you can't heal in combat then you're not supporting their playstyle.

    I am sorry but you are dead wrong,you can use real life to back it up.The Dragon is not a thinking Mob it is merely reacting to the person whacking away at it.However even if it was a thinking mob it still fits nicely into the the game and it's mechanics.

    These games SHOULD use HATE mechanics,FFXI is the best design for combat but anyhoot,it makes the game react realistically.Imagine in real life some little kid was slapping you and another person was back a ways throwing stones at you.The little kid offers such little damage or threat,you would easily decide to go after the stone thrower[that if you had the ability to think].

    Now you need to remember we like it realistic but at the same time it is a FANTASY game so it is ok to have forms of hate control such as PROVOKE in FFXI.Another example would of course be the over used "SHOUT" ability.

    So using the Dragon theory,as long as the player closest to the Dragon is offering the most hate from BOTH damage and abilities the Dragon will of course remain focused on the Tank.If at any time the Healer heals too much because the Tank is lacking then he draws hate,remember it is a Fantasy game,so heals creating hate is fine.

    I would say at any time in real life,the person that is closest will draw the hate,if two people walking through a forest ,contacted a Bear,the Bear would 99/100 times attack the closest person.I would also say that if the other person was throwing something at it from a distance,the Bear would continue to attack it's first choice,so as in the case of many games,it is not easy to draw hate off the Tank ,witch is a realistic scenario.

    Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.

  • KhalathwyrKhalathwyr Member UncommonPosts: 3,133
    Originally posted by Wizardry

    Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


    This topic crops up from time to time; the trinity exists purely because it's the strongest PVE foundation to build game mechanics around. It adds structure and provides a basic platform (tank and spank) for developers to branch out from.
    Obviously, it's completely devoid of logic. No dragon is going to whomp repeatedly on a heavily armoured dude whose every wound is instantly healed by another dude stood 10ft away. Especially when the second dude is wearing "armour" that offers comparable protection to a paper bag. A thin one. A wet thin one. A wet thin one of inferior quality construction.
    But without the trinity, your base fight is a zerg. All definition of class role would go straight out of the window. If you don't have "threat" then how do you determine which player the dragon decides to hit? Do you go by who does the most damage? Closest?
    But then what use would a heavily armoured warrior that does crap damage be when the dragon ignores him and chomps on yer uber-DPS rogue? Both have to be in melee range. You can't just up the warriors damage, or you screw any semblence of class balance. Who would play a rogue if warriors did comparable damage and had much better survivability?
    Do you add extra "threat" to a warriors attacks? Snares? .. you're back to "tank and spank".
    And in-combat healing. Sure, you could get rid of that and made all fights fast enough that the focus is on killing the enemy before you all die (DPS races).. but then you eliminate a complete playstyle. Lots of people enjoy playing the healer role, if you can't heal in combat then you're not supporting their playstyle.

    I am sorry but you are dead wrong,you can use real life to back it up.The Dragon is not a thinking Mob it is merely reacting to the person whacking away at it.However even if it was a thinking mob it still fits nicely into the the game and it's mechanics.

    These games SHOULD use HATE mechanics,FFXI is the best design for combat but anyhoot,it makes the game react realistically.Imagine in real life some little kid was slapping you and another person was back a ways throwing stones at you.The little kid offers such little damage or threat,you would easily decide to go after the stone thrower[that if you had the ability to think].

    Now you need to remember we like it realistic but at the same time it is a FANTASY game so it is ok to have forms of hate control such as PROVOKE in FFXI.Another example would of course be the over used "SHOUT" ability.

    So using the Dragon theory,as long as the player closest to the Dragon is offering the most hate from BOTH damage and abilities the Dragon will of course remain focused on the Tank.If at any time the Healer heals too much because the Tank is lacking then he draws hate,remember it is a Fantasy game,so heals creating hate is fine.

    I would say at any time in real life,the person that is closest will draw the hate,if two people walking through a forest ,contacted a Bear,the Bear would 99/100 times attack the closest person.I would also say that if the other person was throwing something at it from a distance,the Bear would continue to attack it's first choice,so as in the case of many games,it is not easy to draw hate off the Tank ,witch is a realistic scenario.

     

    The problem with this is that players, arguable as to whether they are "thinking or not", when put in this situation will always kill the healer first and then the tank. So, if the Dragon was a thinking entity it most certainly would see that it would need to kill the healer first and then the tank because any damage it does to the tank at current will just be healed.

    Now, if you ditch the holy trinity system and move to something like UO where everyone can heal themselves (if you take the right skills) then yes, I can see the Dragon just wailing on the closest target, of switching to another one because it starts hitting harder.

    "Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."

    Chavez y Chavez

  • GoronianGoronian Member Posts: 724

    It depends, really. Probably in the next generation (or even the one, that comes after) we might actually see more direct separation in MMO combat mechanics - tactical- and action-oriented.

    Now, with tactical, the elimination of the "Holy trinity" can really shine. For example, most of the fights would not be N of you VS 1 of them, but rather N of you, VS 50 of them. This can lead to different tactics, that would barely require a healer as much. The enemies would be much easily killed individually, but the problem would arise from controlling them, as a group. More complex "threat" mechanics could be implemented and your ranged fighters could be given a whole new meaning. I suppose it could lead to elimination of BOTH tanks and healers as a central role in the group (not eliminating them from the game completely), focusing more on crowd-control and quickly dispatching of more dangerous foes. I think the "Tank" role could be filled with a group, made simply by melee-classes, holding enemies at bay and not letting them get to their support. You might say, that this leads to a less "thought-out" match, but I disagree, since positioning yourself right and rounding the enemies could be even more complex (winning high ground, anyone?).

    On the other hand, more action-oriented games could feature things like real-time dodging, exploiting weak spots, actual use for "jump" button and all things like that. For example, even if use the "tank" mechanic, the warrior could run right into the dragon, hiting it with a shield across it'ss face, with melee-fighters latching onto the dragon's back, which would, obviously lead to struggling, but there is still the problem of a warrior smashing the dragon's nose with his mace, keeping his attention busy and not dying, since at that ridiculous close-range the dragon can't hit him very well AND the fact, that some of his limbs are occupied by OTHER people. That kind of thing.

    I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
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  • VanpryVanpry Member Posts: 152

    To say TF2 uses the holy trinity is a bit of a stretch.  It is more of a front line and rear line design with everyone doing dps.  Which is more of a realistic take then you tank, you heal and you dps.  How many great stories are set up where each person does their own little part and nothing else?  How many great heros have killed great beast without wearing heavy armor?  If you have played pnp dnd how many times did your cleric or any light armor person stay in the back?  D&D how many arcane spells are geared to put the caster in the front line?

    So how could a front line rear line build work for mmo?  Ideally you would get rid of classes and go back to skill based system, but it could work with a class system as well.  For example using a healer arch type class at some point you would come to a point where you would choose between become a priest cloth (rear healer/dps) or a cleric heavy armor (front healer/dps).  The priest would become the typically caster healer while the cleric becomes a warrior healer.

    Caster arch type becomes a warlock or wizard.

    There also need to be more ways to negate or heal damage. 

  • DerrialDerrial Member Posts: 250


    Originally posted by disownation
    Lets say you and I were to come accross a Grizzley Bear in the Wild. Now, I'm a big guy (6'2 / 280lbs / Muscles Galore). And you're a little skinny guy (but with a spear). I'm fairly certain I could taunt and shout and keep that Bear's attention on me while you sneak up behind him and stab him. If he turns to you and goes to strike you, I could again grab his attention (maybe even physically grabbing his head and pulling it back to face me) and make him "believe" I am more threatening...because I am bigger, louder, more intimidating and my stance is imposing (my arms are out stretched and I'm raoring up like he is). His focus is going to naturally be on me - because I am the most threatinging being of the two of us. His natural reaction is going to assume that I am who he should focus on for his survival...and not the little guy who has a sharp object that can sever his artery and kill him.
     
    See? So its not so illogical after all is it? Hehe.

    This example only works because the Grizzly Bear is a dumb animal. Change the opponent to an intelligent human being, and the logic goes out the window. A human opponent would instantly recognize that the spear is the greater threat. In MMORPGs like WoW, however, humanoid enemies behave exactly the same as dumb beasts, and therein lies the problem with the holy trinity.

    It's a problem only if realism is important to the game. I don't think it matters in WoW. It's not a "realistic" world. Like most MMORPGs, it's a fantasy world and applying real-world behaviors to dragons and orcs and mages isn't entirely necessary.

    On the other hand, if and when a MMO is released that has a real-world setting, the holy trinity is more difficult to apply. Take "The Agency" for example. I don't know much about how that game is going to play. It's mostly PvP, but if it does have PvE there probably won't be traditional "boss fights." But let's just say they decided that they wanted traditional MMORPG boss fights. Could they use the Holy Trinity in that game? How would that work? Would they have the boss firing off his Tommy Gun at whichever player has the best cover or has the highest HP and ignore the player who has the biggest gun? That doesn't make much sense, and I think it hurts the realism of the scenario, which is more important in that type of game.

    I don't know what the solution might be, but I don't think the holy trinity can be applied to all MMOs. If we are going to see variety in MMOs, there has to be some alternative PvE mechanics.

  • MaelkorMaelkor Member UncommonPosts: 459

    The reason no one can come up with a different mechanic is the holy trinity is inherent in any combat system designed or undesigned. It merely exists all on its own as a direct function of combat itself. The only way to get rid of it is to get rid of combat.

    Guildwars definately had the holy trinity by the way. It had a slight twist on it but you definately had the ability to "tank", heal and dps as well as crowd control. They simply did a good job of allowing players to mix up parts of that trinity in a variety of ways across a variety of characters, instead of putting all tanking on a single character, all healing on a single character and all dps on a single character.

    Even if you look at the real world military you will find plenty of evidence of the holy trinity wherever you look. Combat medics, first aid survival techniques taught to soldiers, medi vacs, field hospitals for healing. You also have actual vehicles called tanks which are very hard to "kill" or destroy. You have dps in the form of planes, copters, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns etc. In fact I think less than 1/3rd of a high end military is acutally made up of fighting soldiers. The rest is all forms and types of support both in the field and off the field. There is even research being done to make robots that can follow soldiers around and do a variety of medical techniques, surgeries and various things to stabilize and heal soldiers out in the field when they get wounded.

    Usually the more a game tries to run away from the inherent functions of combat the holy trinity represents the worse the game turns out to be combat wise. First person shooters are the exception as the design usually encompasses one shot kills as the norm. You cant heal or tank a one shot model thus no trinity.

  • HrothmundHrothmund Member Posts: 1,061

    I see an easy solution to this in scifi games, relatively rapidly regenerating shields. Essentially any player would be able to draw aggro, take some hits and then 'heal themselves' back up to normal. This works extremely well in Borderlands, as an example, even though that game does feature class roles.

     

    Diablo is an other example of a system that could be ported over to a real MMO. Yes, the game had different classes and the barbarian did feature many tank like abilities, however, you were fine with 8 necromancers or sorceresses.

  • daarcodaarco Member UncommonPosts: 4,275

    I would make everyone the tank/dps/healer.

    You take a character and give him a armour, sword and a bow (+arrows).

    Now, when you play...example a big battle. You begin with a few friends to recon the area. The armour is to noisy and heavy so you ditch it in your camp. When you spot the enemy you go back and report.

    Just in time when your armour is on, the enemy arrives. Before they know what happend, your side have launched  arrows all over them and are now charging in to close courter combat.

     

    So what im saying the tank/dps and healer is the worst and "stupiduest" thing ever invented for games! There is absolutely no need for them at all.

    I played table top RPGs for ten years before i saw it the first time. And i could not understand WTF it was all about! And the first time i saw it in a MMO (WoW).....both my and my gf quit.

  • MMO_DoubterMMO_Doubter Member Posts: 5,056
    Originally posted by Maelkor


    The reason no one can come up with a different mechanic is the holy trinity is inherent in any combat system designed or undesigned. It merely exists all on its own as a direct function of combat itself. The only way to get rid of it is to get rid of combat.
    Guildwars definately had the holy trinity by the way. It had a slight twist on it but you definately had the ability to "tank", heal and dps as well as crowd control. They simply did a good job of allowing players to mix up parts of that trinity in a variety of ways across a variety of characters, instead of putting all tanking on a single character, all healing on a single character and all dps on a single character.
    That isn't the holy trinity in that case. The holy trinity is built around ONE tank taking the damage, so that the ONE healer can heal just him, while the DPS kill/CC targets.
    Even if you look at the real world military you will find plenty of evidence of the holy trinity wherever you look. Combat medics, first aid survival techniques taught to soldiers, medi vacs, field hospitals for healing.
    Absolutely wrong. Combat medics don't heal soldiers from a distance, and don't heal soldier while they are being shot. Don't be ridiculous. Field hospitals have nothing to do with in-combat healing.
    You also have actual vehicles called tanks which are very hard to "kill" or destroy. You have dps in the form of planes, copters, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns etc.


    Real life tanks are the DPS as well. They don't use 'magic' taunt abilities to get enemies to concentrate fire on them. Heavy weapons (not small arms) are directed at them because they represent a serious DPS threat (unlike MMORPG tanks).

    In a WW2 naval engagement, a carrier was a higher priority target than a battleship both because it was easier to kill and because it was a greater DPS threat. Navies didn't have the equivalent of RPG 'tanks' because they would not be serious threats and would be treated as 'tank's in RPG PvP are treated - ignored until the high priority targets are gone.

    "" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2

  • spades07spades07 Member UncommonPosts: 852

    look at Dota. The idea is in that you either make everyone damage dealers or split up support abilities. Don't have to think exclusively inside the box. I mean simply altering the mechanics and you change the game as well, for instance, adding physical collision which maybe different classes can 'whack' back a mob.

  • Angelof2070Angelof2070 Member Posts: 224

    I don't even have to think about it to come up with an alternative. And believe me, if I can within a few seconds come up with a gameplay model that differentiates itself from the tank/healer/dps trinity, then there are hundreds of models to replace it with.

     

     

    First, you change the game at its core. In the "trinity" model it's

    Objective: Kill Enemy. Don't die.

     

    Immediately you could change the way the objectives work. Add to that several things such as

    1) Capture Something (Stationary or Moveable Flag)

    This incorporates very important models in addition to HP, Damage, and Restoring HP from Damage.

    Speed and Crowd Control. That's FIVE, not three.

    2) Escort "Cart" through enemy territory.

    Stealth (Ambush), Mechanic (Repair Cart), Anti-Vehicle (Damage Cart, Steal whats in cart)

    That's 8 different mechanics that could be all equally important.

    Having all tank/healer/dps, then the enemy will just grab the objective and run away, or the cart will be too hard to destroy.

    Arguably, Mechanic and Anti-Vehicle would be dps/healer and the Cart would be tank. Okay, so that would be more like a Double-Trinity + 2

    Add in the economy to the PvP, and you get miners. Give them a direct link into PvP somehow and yea.

    These may be poor examples, but it's pretty easy to add to hp/dmg/heal. Just look at TF2.

     

    Team Fortress 2- this has more than just tank/healer/dps. This has Scout, Spy, Mechanic. That's more than just a trinity.

  • Angelof2070Angelof2070 Member Posts: 224

    Take a look at World in Conflict.

    Support- Looooooong Ranged Inaccurate DPS, Anti-Air DPS, Crowd Control (Smoke), Healer

    Tanks- Tanks

    Air- Untouchable by tanks DPS, Anti-Air DPS, Radar (Tracking)

    Infantry- Stealthed DPS, Self-Heal

     

  • pojungpojung Member Posts: 810

    ;MMO_Doubter

    That isn't the holy trinity in that case. The holy trinity is built around ONE tank taking the damage, so that the ONE healer can heal just him, while the DPS kill/CC targets.

    Remember that a holy trinity is often times more than a singular tank and healer. Offering 'side roles' of 'offtank', 'threat sponge' and the like to tanks... 'raid healer' 'HOTer' 'oh noes! healer' to healers.

    Also, you mention CC. Debuffing a debuff, keeping rolling buffs on people etc etc fall outside of a rigid 'tank''heal''dps' setup.

    Absolutely wrong. Combat medics don't heal soldiers from a distance, and don't heal soldier while they are being shot. Don't be ridiculous. Field hospitals have nothing to do with in-combat healing.

    Distance is not the determining factor in his example. How a combat medic in the Army performs their duties will differ than a fantasy game, but the example does illustrate a real-world parallel. Some do keep healing while being shot (the norm), others are trained to be a rifleman first, support unit second (18D).

    Field hospitals I don't see having a parallel as you yourself have stated. Thus, no lesson to extract from the example.

    Real life tanks are the DPS as well. They don't use 'magic' taunt abilities to get enemies to concentrate fire on them. Heavy weapons (not small arms) are directed at them because they represent a serious DPS threat (unlike MMORPG tanks).

    Yes, and no. Armored vehicles are used, at the root of it all, as 'presence' establishers. The destructive capabilities of any armored vehicle are always secondary to the tactical decisiveness that the ground-pounders offer. While the metaphor is a loose one at best, armored vehicles *absolutely* attract attention. They are called 'bullet magnets' for a reason. Heavy weapons are directed at them *NOT* because they represent a tactical threat (although it is *a* reason), but because it is simply *the only way to eliminate them*. Those same heavy weapons (IEDs and RPGs mainly- the military kind- I just did a funny) are used equally on infantry.

    In a WW2 naval engagement, a carrier was a higher priority target than a battleship both because it was easier to kill and because it was a greater DPS threat. Navies didn't have the equivalent of RPG 'tanks' because they would not be serious threats and would be treated as 'tank's in RPG PvP are treated - ignored until the high priority targets are gone.

    In laymen's terms:

    Every threat can be quantified as being 'high threat, high defense', 'high threat, low defense', 'low threat, high defense', and 'low threat, low defense'. You always, always kill in order of HTLD, HTHD, LTLD, LTHD. Where your 'tank''heal''dps' lie inside of these categories depends on the developper.

     

    @ Angelof2070

    Remember that all examples have a way of being reduced to a 'simpler simplification'. In math, there isn't a single function that cannot be reduced, at the root, to simple arithmetic addition. Ensure that when you examine 'new approaches' that those approaches cannot be reduced to finding themselves back inside of a holy trinity setup.

    Your objective is cleanly stated: reduce other guy's health to 0, don't let your health reach 0. The classic push-pull.

    Presence (capturing a flag, occupying a defined area) can be an external objective but boils down to 'gaining' the presence (via reducing other guy to 0), and occupying it (not letting you reach 0).

    Escort is the same thing. You're offering new ideas for *how to use the holy trinity* but you're not offering new core mechanics. The stealth concept was interesting, if all that was needed was a simple presence, in which case you still don't want to be reduced to 0, but it doesn't involve reducing someone else, simply movement orchestration while stealthed.

    You touch briefly on incorporating crafters but abandon it. You should have kept it going! But your thought process was indeed heading in the right direction: eliminate the common denominator of the classification. A crafter (gatherer) inside of a group is a function not currently in play where combat is concerned.

     

    An idea for a holy hepta!:

    - Buffer: guy who gives everyone in the group buffs that need to be actively maintained, which provides more of a benefit to everyone's overall role than if he would do another role.

    - Debuffer: guy who enfeebles everyone around the group via debuffs that need to be actively maintained, which provides more of a benefit to everyone's overall role than if he would do another.

    - Enabler: guy who gives more 'functional' increase (speed boost to movement, anti-stun ...) via abilities that need to be actively maintained, which provides more of a benefit to everyone's overall role than if he would do another.

    - Controller: guy who reduces the functions of hostiles (movement, cast, stuns ...) via abilities that need to be actively maintained, which provides more of a benefit to everyone's overall role than if he would do another.

    - Tank. - Heal. - Damage. All fitting the 'needs to be actively maintained, ...'

    That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
    We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
    So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
    - MMO_Doubter

  • SonikFlashSonikFlash Member UncommonPosts: 561
    Originally posted by disownation

    Originally posted by Ilvaldyr


    Obviously, it's completely devoid of logic. No dragon is going to whomp repeatedly on a heavily armoured dude whose every wound is instantly healed by another dude stood 10ft away. Especially when the second dude is wearing "armour" that offers comparable protection to a paper bag. A thin one. A wet thin one. A wet thin one of inferior quality construction.
     



     

     

    Its not completely illogical as you may think. As the "Tank" you are in essence the most "Threatening" in appearence. In an RPG sense, you taunt, boast, and shout to get the dragon's attention and force it to focus on you. Now, from a third person perspective (meaning You - who is watching this from an outside stand point), yes it could seem not so logical. But you forget that you have outside knowlege of the game and its mechanics. Of course you would go for the healers first and ignore the Guy who does the "least amount of damage and can soak an amazing amount of health). The "Dragon" you are fighting does not. He is merely "acting" within the games mechanics.

     

    If you were to think of this in an RL perspective.

    Lets say you and I were to come accross a Grizzley Bear in the Wild. Now, I'm a big guy (6'2 / 280lbs / Muscles Galore). And you're a little skinny guy (but with a spear). I'm fairly certain I could taunt and shout and keep that Bear's attention on me while you sneak up behind him and stab him. If he turns to you and goes to strike you, I could again grab his attention (maybe even physically grabbing his head and pulling it back to face me) and make him "believe" I am more threatening...because I am bigger, louder, more intimidating and my stance is imposing (my arms are out stretched and I'm raoring up like he is). His focus is going to naturally be on me - because I am the most threatinging being of the two of us. His natural reaction is going to assume that I am who he should focus on for his survival...and not the little guy who has a sharp object that can sever his artery and kill him.

     

    See? So its not so illogical after all is it? Hehe.

     


  • LynxJSALynxJSA Member RarePosts: 3,332

    To move away from the trinity would require a change in how mobs work. In a game with dynamic spawns, collision detection, remotely intelligent AI in place of hate/threat, or - gasp - friendly fire would require a significant shift in how people play the game. It would introduce the need for formations, recon/intel and other aspects of combat that are currently unnecessary in most of today's MMOs.  While, support/repair, damage and defense are the most basic elements of combat, they only work in the most primitive of combat situations. In any type of advanced engagement, so much more strategy would be required.

    -- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG 
    RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? 
    FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?  
  • Samkin772Samkin772 Member Posts: 104

     

    So what im saying the tank/dps and healer is the worst and "stupiduest" (are you being ironic?) thing ever invented for games! There is absolutely no need for them at all.

    I played table top RPGs for ten years before i saw it the first time. And i could not understand WTF it was all about! And the first time i saw it in a MMO (WoW).....both my and my gf quit.

    The Holy Trinity in MMO's comes from D&D.  Different DM's run the game their own way, so I can see more political/story driven scenarios not requiring it, but any Medieval/Fantasy p&p rpg or MMORPG requires them if they have a heavy group combat emphasis.  The Holy Trinity isn't as apparent in White Wolf story arcs, but combat really isn't the emphasis there anyway.

    ALL combat anywhere/anytime revolves around Offense, Defense, and Support.  This wasn't something D&D created and everyone else copied into their games, it has been around forever.  They are separated in most MMO's as a way to encourage interaction between players.  If your character can do it all, there is no reason to link up with other players. 

  • Einherjar_LCEinherjar_LC Member UncommonPosts: 1,055

    I think the reason the holy trinity system is so predominate now is because it has to be in class based games, which is what makes up the majority of the market right now.  When you have predetermined classes, you have to have predetermined roles for said classes.

     

    Back in the "olden days" when I was playing UO, then AC1, there was no holy trinity involved because there were no classes.  People could make their characters how they wanted, taking whatever abilities they wanted to make their characters the most viable.  This of course leads to more of a zerg mentality depending on the game design, but it is possible to design content to avoid zerging.

     

    Unfortunately, I think you're going to have one, the other, or a hybrid of the two depending on the game design you choose.  There just doesn't seem to be any way around it.  There have to be base encounter rules for developers to design content and characters/classes around.

    Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!

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